


peculiar and intense

by shield_maiden



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: & rating may change etc, Drug Addiction, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Immediately Post Season 1, Sick Character, Slow Burn, Wow look @ me trying to write slow burn, alternating pov, i actually don’t think Harry and Allie have ever TRULY been enemies tho, tags will be added as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-03-27 12:38:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19013074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shield_maiden/pseuds/shield_maiden
Summary: Whatever he and Allie might have been, or had the potential to be, had crumbled to dust the moment he had taken up the mantle of leader alongside Lexie.——————————————————————Or, the long road back from the coup for Allie and Harry.





	1. Chapter one

Whatever he and Allie might have been, or had the potential to be, had crumbled to dust the moment he had taken up the mantle of leader alongside Lexie. 

Truthfully, he didn’t want it, he still doesn’t want it. 

He’s known since before Campbell signed him up that he’s not cut out for this, not really. Not cut out to be the only thing standing between two hundred teenagers and their self destruction. He could barely keep himself from self destructing, let alone anyone else. But Campbell wouldn’t let him say no, holding the threat of cutting off his pill supply over his head like a sword threatening to come down. He didn’t want to lose what he had always had.

So he said yes. What else was he supposed to do?

He’s pretty sure she hates him now, she’s locked in the wine cellar, has been for days. Arrested under the bull shit excuse of tampering with the election. He’s gone to see her a few times, mostly she’s glared daggers at him and stayed stubbornly silent, or pretended he wasn’t there at all, turning her back to him as she lay on the cold concrete floor. He’s not sure he blames her, he doesn’t exactly like himself all that much these days either.

He’s very glad that looks can’t actually kill.

He walks down the stairs to the wine cellar, his hand groping at the wall for the light switch. It’s dark down here and late at night. 

The room floods with halogen glow, and she stirs from where she’s curled into a ball in the corner, her hands coming up to shield her eyes from the abrupt brightness of the lights after being in darkness. Finally she lowers her hands and glares at him.

“What the fuck do you want, Harry?” She asks, getting to her feet and wrapping her arms around herself. “Or is sleep deprivation the new torture method?” 

He smirks at that. He’d forgotten how witty she could be. 

“Something like that.” He shrugs casually, as if she’s not being held in a glorified jail cell. Much less under his orders.

“You know this is wrong, Harry.” She says to him, her blue eyes boring into his. 

“Do I?” He says, frowning, holding her gaze through the glass (yes, his conscience tells him). “You tried to take everything from me, Allie. All in the name of fairness.” 

He’s going to ignore that his treatment of her right now isn’t exactly fair either. This is not the time to decide to listen his conscience.

“I’m just protecting what’s mine.” He continues, drawing the guards chair towards the glass to sit, indicating that he has no intention of leaving any time soon.

She goes back to glowering at him from the corner, muttering about what a selfish bastard he is.

He tells her she’s right.

———————————————————  
Things in New Ham are not going well. 

Lexie has started repealing Cassandra’s rules, and the peace and order fell apart like a house of cards in a tornado. 

It was every man for himself now.

Honestly it’s a little bit scary, watching people fight over homes and food. 

But he has his home, and his food. So it’s business as usual.  
————————————  
Campbell metaphorically twists their arms until they redistribute the guns. Harry thinks they might get a week before that comes back to bite them. 

He tells Lexie as much, as she sits across from him in the privacy of his home. 

“Allie taking the guns away was a good thing.” he sighs irritably, staring down at his hands- they’re shaking. His high is crashing. He needs another dose, but he’s almost out of pills again. 

Lexie is frowning at him when he looks up again, but she doesn’t say anything about it. Instead she reminds him that the people want to see action, to see them move away from Allie’s rules. And people want to be able to protect themselves.

“They’re scared.” She says, as though that’s a valid reason for them to have guns again.

Harry wonders how long it will be before someone else pulls a gun in the cafeteria. How long it will be before New Ham self destructs like the ticking time bomb it is. 

He doesn’t wonder how long it will be before he regrets all of this insanity, because he already does. He never wanted to lead, he just didn’t want Allie to lead, not if it meant he lost everything he has.

Lexie leaves after they arrange another meeting for later that evening, and he sighs, exhausted and shaky as he shuts the front door behind her, glad he no longer has to pretend he’s not clammy and shaky and in need of a fix. 

The second it closes he’s scrambling up the stairs, down the hallway, through the bedroom door, and lunging for the dented altoid tin he left on his side table. His fingers shake as he opens it and tips one of the small white pills into his hand and dry swallows it. He flops back onto his unmade bed and stares up at the ceiling.

He lies there until he feels the drugs kick in, and then he lies there a little longer, trying to let his limbs go loose and will his body to relax. He feels... nice. Numb. Not anxious, not scared. 

He wishes he could feel like this all the time.

————————————————  
That evenings meeting with Lexie and Campbell goes more or less as expected, with Campbell making ‘suggestions’ which are really just thinly veiled orders, giving them enough agency to feel like it was their idea and not just his.

They’re just about to wrap up when Lexie brings up the Allie situation.

“We can’t keep them locked up forever.” She says, leaving the fact that they have no real evidence to support it unsaid.

Campbell smirks at her, but his eyes flash dangerously and Harry really hopes that Lexie won’t continue to push the subject. “We can, actually. You’re in charge, remember?”

Harry remembers the previous evening, when he’d paid Allie a visit. How cold it had been down there. The way she’d wrapped her arms around herself tightly. 

“We should at least give her a blanket or something.” He says, and they both turn to look at him. He realises it’s the most he’s said the whole meeting. “It’s fucking freezing down there.” He adds with a shrug. 

“If we leave her down there with nothing, that’s, like, torture. I’m not torturing someone, no matter what she’s done.” Lexie says, and he’s glad she has something of a working moral compass.

Campbell thinks this over for a moment, and Harry gets the impression that he’d rather just let his cousin freeze to death, but then that would be on him. And Campbell, Harry knows, is nothing if not self serving even in his cruelty.

Finally he nods.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is shaping up to be an alternating POV piece because that stuff is my jam. You can find me on tumblr @crimson—petrichor!

The cellar is fucking freezing. Her feet are numb inside her sneakers and she can’t stop shivering, her jacket repurposed as a pillow as she curls into a ball in the corner, trying to generate some kind of warmth in the hope she’ll be able to sleep. Instead the cold from the concrete seeps deep into her bones and settles there, aching.

She hears footsteps on the stairs and groans. She’s so tired and cold, she just wants to be left alone already.

She expects it to be Harry, or Lexie. But once the lights flicker on and her eyes adjust, she’s surprised to see Campbell standing on the other side of the glass. He cousin crouches down, bringing them eye to eye, even though she’s remained as far away from him as she can be. 

When he smiles it doesn’t reach his eyes.

She waits for him to say something, covertly rubbing her fingers against her denim clad thighs in an attempt to warm them, but he just smiles. It’s creepy as fuck and finally she breaks the silence.

“What do you want, Campbell?” She snaps, irritated and cold.

His smile only widens. “Is that really any way to talk to your family, Allie?” He admonishes.

She doesn’t want to do this. Doesn’t want to be looking at him or having this conversation at all. She’s cold, she’s tired, and she just wants to be left alone. She scoffs though, unable to help herself at the sheer hypocrisy of him.

“Is this really any way to treat your family, Campbell?” She fires back. It’s then she notices the blanket he’s got draped over his arm and he must see the way her eyes widen slightly because he smirks.

“You want the blanket?” He asks, and she knows it’s not going to be as simple as saying yes and getting it when she sees the twisted smile on his face. “Allie, I don’t think you deserve the blanket after what you did to Elle.”

He looks down at it then, picking at a speck of lint on the blanket. She strongly suspects he’s waiting for her to beg, in some sick demonstration of dominance.

She’s not going to beg though. Instead she steels herself and takes a breath.

“Fuck you, Campbell.” 

He tuts at her, and shakes his head like he’s disappointed in her. “Language, Allie. To think Harry and Lexie were just going to give it to you, like some gesture of good faith. As though you deserve it.”

The cold must be effecting her mind more than she thought because it snags on the mention of Harry, that he’d cared enough about her well being. It stirs something in her chest, but she’ll have to analyse that later, because right now, Campbell is still talking.

“Maybe another few days in the cold and you’ll change your mind.” He says as he stands, looking down at her for a moment before he leaves, plunging her into darkness again.

—————————————  
The next day she wakes with a scratchy throat and her head is pounding and she can’t breathe without coughing and she thinks she might have a fever, but it’s difficult to tell because she’s been so cold for so long. 

She must look like shit, because Luke frowns when he comes to bring her some breakfast - a granola bar that she doesn’t touch and a bottle of water that she tries to make herself sip from.

She curls into a ball in the corner and tries to sleep, she’s so tired.

Her dreams are weird, hazy yet vivid. She dreams of Cassandra, she’s there with her pushing her hair back from her sweaty forehead with an ice cold hand, the front of her prom dress soaked with blood.

She wakes once, enough to register sound of voices upstairs, but she can’t focus enough to make out words let alone who is talking. She thinks they sound angry, and she hopes they don’t come down here and yell at her; she feels awful enough with the pounding headache and all her joints aching too. Fevered sleep drags her back under soon enough.

She dreams that she’s floating. Surrounded by something warm, that smells good. It’s nice and she feels safe, like she could stay here forever. 

“You’re going to be okay, Allie.” Comes a disembodied voice, breaking through the fog that surrounds her mind. 

She wants to believe it.

—————————————————

Panic grips her when she wakes up, unsure where she is. It takes her a moment to realise she’s in the hospital, in one of the bays in the old emergency room, the curtains drawn around her bed.

She goes to bring her right hand up, intending to rub at her eyes, but the pull of an IV line in her hand makes her stop short. She looks around, and smiles softly when she sees the slumped form of Grizz in a chair, a few feet from the bed. She wonders how long he’s been there, asleep. Long enough for some of his hair to slip from his ponytail apparently.

“Grizz.” She tries to speak, but all that comes out of her mouth is a hoarse whisper, and the strain on her vocal cords makes her cough. 

Grizz stirs though, jerking awake to look around as though he expects to see Campbell, arresting her again. His gaze falls on her, and he drags his chair closer to the bed when she indicates that she wants to talk. 

“What happened?” She croaks out as his fingers brush the hand without the IV line.

“You got really sick, like a super high fever. You were basically delirious.” Grizz says quietly, anger tinging his voice. “Campbell would have just left you down there in the cold if—”

He’s interrupted by the sound of the curtain being pulled back to reveal Gordie on the other side, he breaks into a smile when he sees that she’s awake and steps forward into the cubicle. 

“How are you feeling?” He asks as he steps over to the other side of her bed, before helping her sit up.

“Like shit.” She says, mustering a wry smile. It’s true, she feels horrible. But it’s still better than she felt after thanksgiving, she doesn’t feel like she’s dying this time at least. Everything hurts but she lifts her shirt so Gordie can place his stethoscope against her back, flinching at the coldness of it before breathing in and out slowly. Grizz diverts his gaze.

“Your chest seems to be clearing up.” Gordie comments as she pulls her shirt back down before taking the thermometer he hands her and putting it under her tongue, just to check that her fever has well and truly broken.

By the time Gordie leaves, she’s exhausted again, and slumps back against the pillows. She wants to sleep, but more than that she wants the rest of the story.

“What happened?” She asks again.

“Luke told Harry, Lexie and Campbell that you were ill. From what I heard, Harry lost it, he even punched Campbell.” Grizz pauses like he’s unsure if he should continue or not. “He went and got you out of the cellar himself and drove you here. You were so out of it.”

The look on her face must betray her feelings of surprise because Grizz shrugs. 

“I was surprised too, but he refused to leave. Gordie had the guard remove him.” 

She wants to know more, like what happened to Campbell, and if Will is okay, what’s happening in the outside world, but sleep is dragging her under and she can’t fight it. 

She’s so tired.

This time she doesn’t dream


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey fam, here’s chapter 3 and chapter four is probably about 98% complete but again, I’m trying to stay a chapter ahead of myself. Thank you to everyone who has commented/will comment or has left kudos! It really makes my day to know that people enjoy my works.

It had all gone to shit -or well, more shit.

Jason had come in from his rounds after taking Allie breakfast, and the worried slant to his shoulders instantly caught Lexie’s attention as she bought her mug of coffee down from where it had been halfway to her lips. 

“What?” She had asked, her frown deepening as Harry had followed her gaze.

“It’s Allie.” Jason started, shifting uncomfortably where he stood, under the knowledge that what he had to report probably wouldn’t be received well, Harry assumed. 

“What about her?” He said, tiredly, not at all enjoying the way Jason seemed to squirm in their presence - something he knew that Campbell would delight in. And sure enough when he had looked across the kitchen, a twisted smirk had formed on the other boy’s face. 

“She’s sick, man.”

That gets Harry’s attention, and he stands up straighter from where he’s leaning against the kitchen island.

“Shit.” He says, in the same moment Lexie asks “How sick?”

He had looked over at her and frowned when he saw the look on her face. It wasn’t quite delighted, but there had been a smugness to it. He knew - for some reason she’s never divulged to him- that she’s not exactly Allie’s biggest fan.

“I didn’t ask or take her temperature or anything, but she looks like shit.” Jason has said, his uneasiness returning, like he’s not sure this is the right crowd to be advocating for her to. “She probably at least needs some medicine, and someone should take her a blanket. It’s fucking freezing down there.”

“She didn’t have a blanket?” He asked, his tone harsh and surprised, his gaze flicking to Campbell.

“No man.” Jason shook his head, looking confused at the shift in energy in the room.

“You agreed, we’d give her a blanket.” He’d ground out, pushing himself away from the island to encroach on Campbell’s personal space.

Campbell had just smirked and shrugged. “I didn’t think she deserved it.”

Rage had filled him then, white hot and all consuming. He’d wanted to punch Campbell in the face, but another part of him had made him turn to grab his coat to leave, the other boy’s threats going unheard. He’d just needed to get to Allie.

No one tried to stop him until he reached Luke’s old house, but Campbell was hot on his heels even as he’d pressed down on the gas. He made it inside the house just as Campbell bought his car to a screeching halt on the lawn and lunged out of the car after him. 

They’d fought then, slinging vicious words at each other. Now Harry vaguely remembers Jason had thundered up the stairs at the commotion and attempted to wrench them apart. But not before Campbell had smirked at him, and said “She’s better off dead. She deserves it, like her sister did.” 

So Harry had punched him in the face, and he’d kept punching him even as he’d reeled backwards into the dining room table that he vaguely remembered crowding around at one of Luke’s birthday parties, before Harry had decided they were all beneath him.   
He didn’t stop until Jason had managed to push him away. “Did you hear him?” He’d asked, between ragged breaths, only continuing when the other boy had nodded, his gaze hardened. “Good, keep him here.” 

The walk down the stairs had simultaneously been both the longest and shortest of his life as something like dread had pooled in his gut at the thought of what he might find at the bottom.

Allie was curled into herself in the corner, and even from outside the glass door he had been able to see her shivering violently. Once inside he’d crouched down and reached out with a hand to gently shake her shoulder. She hadn’t woken, but she’d turned a little, and he could see the way her sweat soaked hair had clung to her forehead and neck, the paleness of her lips. He’d pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, the way his Mom used to do when he was sick as a child. She’d been burning up. He’d known then that he had to get her out of there. 

He’d picked her up carefully, one arm under her knees and the other cradling her back. She’d stirred slightly then, not quite regaining consciousness, and he’d been compelled to reassure her somehow as he started back up the stairs. 

“You’re going to be okay, Allie.”

——————————————————  
Harry’s hand throbs, bruised but not broken, he assumes - judging from the way he can still both clench it into a fist and spread his fingers wide without excruciating pain despite the mottled blue-purple-yellow-red over his knuckles. Could Gordie and Kelly even set a broken hand? Or would it just be left to heal as is, likely taking on some deformed and twisted shape as bones healed askew? 

He’s sitting in the hallway of the clinic, his back against the wall. He’d been escorted from the emergency department by Luke, as Kelly had inserted an IV into the back of Allie’s hand. He should probably go home, he knows, but he just - he needs to know that she’ll be okay. 

Her voice echoes in his head. ‘Sometimes I think there’s a version of this world where we’re friends.’ 

At the time he’d privately thought that he didn’t deserve to be her friend, and now knows that he definitely doesn’t. Constantly torn between doing the right thing and his own inherent selfishness and pride.

It’s no surprise that his own selfishness and pride wins out more often than not.

It was his own pride and selfishness that had made him hate Cassandra, that had made him wish she was dead, and it was his selfishness that had forced him to stubbornly cling to the remnants of his old life, unwilling and unable to cope with the new one - so he’d turned to drugs - the only thing that made this new reality seem somewhat bearable. 

He remembers the first few days, how he’d burnt through his Mom’s Xanax, desperately trying to quell the roiling anxiety that had plagued him. The only time he remembers feeling alive was when Allie had been beside him, in his car, by his pool, in his bed. He’d never paid her much mind before, never really seen her, stuck in the shadow of Cassandra. 

But suddenly in this new world she had been everywhere, and he’d realised, that day at the gas station, that they were more alike than he’d ever thought. He was pining for Kelly, desperate to cling to anything that had remained mostly the same, she was pinning for Will desperate, he thinks now, for someone to love her for who she was - and to love her back. He thinks that’s the first time he really saw her, at least the first time since she was eight years old, peculiar and intense. They were mirror images that day, both rejected, but still she had shone so brightly, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips when she’d told him that he couldn’t be mean to Cassandra and nice to her.

Except he could. He was.

He’s pulled from his own thoughts by Kelly, sitting down against the wall opposite him. She looks older, somehow, and he’s struck by the realisation that she’s no longer the person he knew.

He’s not sure how that makes him feel.

They sit in silence for a moment before he speaks, voicing the question he’s desperate to get an answer for. “How is she?”

Kelly looks at him, something unreadable flirting across her face before she answers him. “Sleeping. Rehydrating. Grizz is with her.”

He notices she doesn’t say good, but he nods minutely, understanding that Allie needs to recover, and the further unspoken sentiment - that he can’t go see her.

He feels Kelly watching him, like she wants to say something but she’s not sure how. Instead she points to his bruised knuckles. “You should ice that.”

He nods again and pushes himself off the floor, letting her think that he will, once he’s home. 

He won’t, instead he’ll swallow some pills and fall into a dreamless sleep.

And then he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HMU on tumblr @crimson—petrichor


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allie hates being in hospital, but gets a visit from Harry...and Will.

It’s boring as fuck, laying there staring at the ceiling. Allie counts the tiles once, twice, three times. She wishes one of her friends had thought to bring her a book or something. She misses the Internet and scrolling mindlessly through Instagram. She misses fresh air, and sunlight, and the stars at night.

She’d argued with Gordie earlier that morning that the fact that she was bored meant that she was feeling better and should be able to go home. She’d watched him think about it, could see him weighing the pros and cons judiciously.

The hospital was safe, neutral territory, a kind of no mans land. She wouldn’t be arrested or harmed here, outside though? Campbell’s law ruled and no one knew what might happen if she set foot into the streets of New Ham. And who knows how far Campbell and Lexie’s vitriol had spread. 

Allie understood his reluctance, she did. 

But really, it wasn’t much different to being locked in Luke’s families wine cellar. Sure it wasn’t freezing and there was food and water and the few friends she had left had set up a small rotation to keep her company, but she still feels trapped.

She naps on and off, still plagued by fatigue even if her head doesn’t ache and it doesn’t feel like she’s swallowed a fistful of razor blades.

She wakes to a figure standing uncertainly at the edge of the curtain that serves as two of her four walls. It’s Harry, she realises, as he shifts uncomfortably, like he’s unsure he should be here. She has so many questions for him. She wonders if he’ll deign to answer her if she asks.

He sees that she’s awake, and she watches the way his posture changes, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck in embarrassment at being caught loitering. 

Allie sits herself up -this feels like something she should be sitting for - before she speaks, painfully aware of how hoarse she sounds still.

“Are you going to come in, or are you just going to stand there?” She swears she sees a twitch of his cheek as he steps fully into the space, leaving the curtain partially open. He comes no further, makes no move to sit in one of the chairs at her bedside, instead settling for lingering at the end of her bed.

He’s close enough now that she can see the dark circles under his eyes, the skin there looks thin and bruised; a five o’clock shadow is highlighting his jaw. 

He looks like shit. 

His hair is an unruly mess, it reminds her of that day after cafeteria duty, one of the last days when she’d been just her sisters shadow.

She thinks that maybe once she would have found some satisfaction in that, but for some reason she doesn’t. 

Not anymore. 

Too much has happened. 

She tears her gaze away, aware that she definitely looks like shit too, so is she really one to talk?

The silence is awkward, and she picks at a stray thread on the scratchy hospital blanket that is draped over her lap.

“I shouldn’t have—“ he starts saying at the same moment she says

“Why are you—“

And it’s somehow more awkward than the silence was, and she swallows thickly before she speaks again. 

“You go first.”

She wants to hear what he has to say this time, unlike when he had shown up at her house after Dewey’s execution. He fidgets, and speaks without looking at her.

“I shouldn’t have come here, I know. I just- I needed to see that you’re okay.” 

He looks at her then, and he looks so fragile, like he could go to pieces at any moment.

She smiles sadly, it’s difficult to forget, that he’s one of the people who put all of this in motion, even if she knows somehow that he has never played as big a part as Lexie, even with Campbell pulling all the strings. She wonders if he’s looking for forgiveness, if he even thinks he deserves it; If she can even give it.

He ducks his head, bringing a hand back up to rub at his neck again. A nervous tic that she files away under ‘things she knows about Harry Bingham’. She sees the mottled bruising across his knuckles. 

She wonders what she cost him, she’s afraid the answer might be everything. 

She blinks and he’s half way out of the room before she speaks.

“Thank you, Harry.”

She means it too, she doesn’t know what might have happened if she had been left there in that freezing wine cellar - if Harry hadn’t saved her.

He stops with his hand on the curtain, and at first she doesn’t think he heard her but then she sees the tiniest nod of his head.

————————————————————

Gordie doesn’t let her leave that day.

He tells her hastily that there’s a plan in motion, to get rid of Campbell, but the less she knows right now the better. She doesn’t like it, but she accepts it. She trusts Gordie, and Bean, and Sam, and Grizz, and Helena. 

He says they’ve started putting it into action and it’s working, so she just has to be patient.

She texts Kelly and asks for a book or something, the other promises to bring one when she comes in to let Gordie go home. She brings the first two Harry Potter novels, and Will. Her jaw drops when she sees him, and she blinks away tears as he pulls her into a hug.

He looks tired, and his wrists are raw, but otherwise he’s okay and she doesn’t think she’s ever been so relieved in her life.

He sits beside her bed with Kelly and they talk for hours. It almost feels like it used to, and for a moment she feels like the sixteen year old girl that she is, just talking with her best friend. They don’t tell her much about the Campbell situation, and after a few attempts she decides not to press it. 

They promise it will be over soon. 

She asks how they got Will out.

“It was easy, once everyone realised they had no evidence. Kelly, Bean, and Gordie helped a lot.” He says, shrugging.

“Oh, of course.” She says her smile faltering, as she wonders why no one had done the same for her. It settles in her stomach like ice, and she suddenly wishes that Will and Kelly would leave.

They don’t seem to notice the change in her behaviour, or if they do they probably chalk it up to just being tired. She makes small talk with them for a few more minutes, until they finally leave. 

She pretends not to notice the way that Will slips his hand into Kelly’s as they go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I’ve got chapter two written but I’m trying to stay at least one chapter ahead of myself so I don’t have a time frame for the next update yet!


End file.
